How Much Revenge Should America Exact for September 11th ?

[kentuck]

After all, we did lose almost 3000 people on that day. Someone should have to pay a price, should they not? Does America not have a right to avenge those deaths?

That said, should "revenge" be the cornerstone of our military response? Did we get revenge by overthrowing the Taliban? Did we get revenge by invading Iraq and capturing Saddam Hussein? Did we get revenge by torturing and humiliating innocent Iraqis?

Just how much revenge should be exacted for 9/11? And hasn't that been the whole purpose behind the Bush pre-emptive war plans, etc? And was it wrong from the beginning? Just what should have been the response and when is enough enough?

[mopaul]

1. 20,000 dead so far

in two nations. i'd say at least that many more have to die to sait our lust

[Bok_Tukalo]

2. Meeting a threat is not revenge

There is not need to avenge anything. Our enemies are just that, enemies. And to cloud our judgement with thoughts of revenge will only make us commit blunders like invading and occupying Iraq.

[kentuck]

6. That is the response I was looking for....

Wasn't Iraq really about revenge? More than anything else? Because GWBush is a revengeful man...

[Bok_Tukalo]

11. I was thinking of Americans

Us and our willingness to go along with the Iraq Blunder.

I have no clue why the Bush Administration wanted to invade and occupy Iraq. Daddy? Likud? WMD threat? If pressed, I'ld say it was a straight forward resource war designed to secure a garrison in the Middle East when our position in Saudi Arabia became untenable.

[kentuck]

12. The "American" people are not leaders - they are followers....

They followed the man in the White House.

[Deja Q]

3. "We're America. We're better than the rest of the world. If necessary,

we should stop all evildoers everywhere so our freedoms can be protected and used to their greatest potential. It's us or them so it may as well be us."

That's what people want to believe.

The biggest trouble is, the same people whose "freedoms" we and the troops are dying for, are offshoring jobs - it's very strange how * creates isolationist policies yet allows corporate america to freely run amok all over the world, exploiting and abusing. (Maybe that's a reason why they hate us?!)

The US has no right to exact 'revenge' of any sort. Not until it cleans up its own act.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. None

"Vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord".

We have squandered any good will we acquired on 9/11 by our actions in Iraq. Osama bin Laden has not been captured, and it would seem to me he would be the one to be brought to trial in a world court for masterminding 9/11. Don't see how the thousands of people who were killed in Iraq, and the thousands more wounded and traumatized, were in any way responsible for what happened on Sept. 11.

[indepat]

Isn't Stonewall Jackson attributed with saying "Kill 'em, kill 'em all?"

Is that to be our national policy?

[indepat]

5. Isn't Stonewall Jackson attributed with saying "Kill 'em, kill 'em all?"

Is that to be our national policy?

[boobooday]

7. Revenge or "protecting the homeland?"

This is where it gets murky.

What would be required to protect us from the terrorists is not the same as what is required for revenge. I think they crossed over into revenge, a long time ago.

And when that happened, it became counter-productive, as revenge always is, creating terrorists instead of eliminating them. And what is Iraq? Vengeance, revenge, raw imperialism, or all of the above?

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[aquart]

8. Well, I need a purge of the FBI, CIA, and White House.

I want everyone who prevented the forwarding of the Phoenix memo fired. Pension, bye bye.

I want the idiots who didn't think it was important to hire translators fired.

I want the whistleblowers promoted (I'm such a dreamer).

Rumsfeld in custody. Cambone at the Hague, pissed off because they're letting him fry alone.

Bush disgraced even unto the fundies and freepers.

I don't give a damn about the cockroach spoiled brat bin Ladin and I never have. There will always be cockroaches. When you see a cockroach in a kitchen you don't blame the cockroach. You blame the housekeeper.

Oh, and I want to see Barbara Bush weeping so hard people have to hold her up.

That would be sufficient for me.

[boobooday]

9. Yes, make Babs cry

But that would probably take some doing. She's probably more likely to get angry and kick her little dog.



http://www.wgoeshome.com

[robbedvoter]

10. Let's see - one Murikan is worth 200 furriners...we still have work to do

me thinks you forgot Dick's permanent war! 60 nations are the object - wich means 58 to go!

[democraticinsurgent]

15. then there's 9-11 itself...

which more and more appears to be facilitated if not caused by Dubya and henchmen. I agree that revenge should never be national policy but if it is, in this case it means taking out the Bush administration post-haste.

[newyawker99]

27. Hi awakeinindiana!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[LibDemAlways]

13. Look at how the Spanish handled the Madrid railroad attacks.

They used intelligence and good police work to arrest suspects. They didn't bomb Morocco, though some involved may have been Moroccan. They didn't use the attacks to settle any old political scores against uninvolved countries. They didn't bomb any third world countries back into the stone age in the off chance they might kill a terrorist or two. They didn't change Spanish law to take away the rights of citizens. They didn't open a detention facility in another country, label people "enemy combatants" and put them in cages.

They took a reasonable, rational approach.

If we had sane leaders, we'd have done the same -- and with the goodwill and cooperation of the better part of the world, we'd be a lot farther ahead in the "war" on terror by now.

[kentuck]

17. You have put your finger on the cause of our present dilemma...

if we had sane leaders....

[mopaul]

20. the europeans recognize that we took the nazi approach

it must seem bizarre to them to see us become what we fought so valiantly against, only a few short years ago

[drfemoe]

14. Theatrical Revenge

If no one's *watching* .. or if an evildoer can be spared for better *use* later, "revenge" takes a back seat.

A friend sent me this article today. It seems to be circulating among 'conservatives' >>

Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind
Abu Musab Zarqawi blamed for more than 700 killings in Iraq

By Jim Miklaszewski
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 7:14 p.m. ET March 02, 2004
With Tuesday’s attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.

But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.
...
Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.
...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601

[Minstrel Boy]

16. Citizens of more than 70 countries died on 9/11, including 26 Canadians.

It's wrong, even ghoulish, for America to claim all 3,000 souls as its own.

And to the question, "How much revenge?", I would say none. To "How much justice?", I would say absolute. And to this date, there has been zero, nada, fuck all.

[durutti]

18. None

There's no right to revenge. There's a right to justice, which is a fundamentally different thing.

In any case, they've already certainly killed more than 3,000 in pursuit of the "war on terrorism".

[the_real_38]

19. none....

... it's that kind of shrill, purely emotional reaction that George Bush manipulated to drag us into his imperial fantasies.

[kentuck]

24. So you think my post is "shrill"....

:)

[wyldwolf]

21. We should go into Afghanistan, remove the taliban, and destroy...

bin Laden and Al queda. We only did this half -assed.

Suadi Arabia needs to be dealt with in some manner.

Iraq, as Wes Clark said, was a side show.

[9215]

22. They should hang the

whole lot of them. That is Bush and his cabal after they are tried and found guilty.

[klyon]

23. No revenge only Justice

KL

[leftofthedial]

25. doesn't revenge have to be taken on theose responsible?

if so, then we've only taken a few hundred dead worth of revenge.

The rest of the Afghan and Iraqi victims had nothing to do with 9-11.

We need to take out a Saudi city to get true revenge, don't we?

[leftofthedial]

26. we should see that justice is done

we should apply Old Testament Justice to all the members of the bush cabal for their roles in causing 9-11.